Six Impossible Things, Abstractions, 101 Dalmatians, Being Thankful

Is it really the last week of January already? One twelfth of the year is coming to a close. Wait! Stop the world, I want to get off! Last week was a rough one, but I'm not going to get into the particulars. Suffice it to say I'm glad it's over with, hopefully, better days to come.

Because of this, it's the perfect time to think of Six Impossible Things.

The White Queen, in Through the Looking Glass, said to Alice: "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." 

When life gets you down think of, or believe, six impossible things before breakfast. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. If you are aren't smiling by the sixth thing, think of six more. Keep thinking of impossible things until you smile, or until you understand that life itself is impossible. Yet here we are.

Here, for your entertainment, are Six Impossible Things. You can believe them or not as you wish.

1. Cheese and wine with Joan of Arc.
2. Being able to know what redwood trees think.
3. Tea and poetry with Emily Dickinson.
4. Breathing under water - without the aid of scuba gear.
5. Sailing with Darwin on the Beagle.
6. Discovering the cure for the common cold.

***

ABSTRACTION

An abstraction is a concept that acts as a super-categorical noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category. (Clear?) An abstraction is a word like love, hate, joy, beauty, cunning, disgust. In this game we turn them into a kind of poetry or a piece of flash fiction.

The rules are simple. You can change them around.
 1: Abstraction plus verb plus place
 2: Describe what the abstraction is wearing
 3: Summarize the action

Today's ABSTRACTION is:
Prayer, wreathed in incense, calls to our hearts as she kneels at our feel.

***

Today,  One Hundred and One Dalmatians is 55 years old. You can find out more about the film HERE.

I have fond memories of seeing this movie in Puerto Rico with my cousin, JohnJohn. We were twelve. While my sister, Erva, and his sister, Frances were watching Ben Hur, we were at the matinee, where the movie ran continuously. One price, stay in the theater and watch it til your nose bleeds. And we had to stay there until we were picked up.

First time through we were cracking up. Second time through we were splitting seams. Third time through, we moved to the front row and were just about rolling on the floor.

One of my favorite scenes is with Horace, Jasper, and the cat.

I still love it.

Being Thankful
Today I'm thankful for prayer in all the many forms it takes.

What are you thankful for? Care to share something impossible to believe in? What about an abstraction? Do you remember seeing 101 Dalmatians?

Six Impossible Things, Abstractions, Question of the Month, Eloise, Being Thankful

It was the White Queen, from Through the Looking Glass, who said to Alice: "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." 

When life gets you down think of, or believe, six impossible things before breakfast. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. If you are aren't smiling by the sixth thing, think of six more. Keep thinking of impossible things until you smile, or until you understand that life itself is impossible. Yet here we are.

Here, for your entertainment, are Six Impossible Things. You can believe them or not as you wish.

1.) Traveling through space on a comet.
2.) Seeing the world from inside a raindrop.
3.) Living inside a beehive.
4.) Discovering Mu.
5.)  Loving to eat liver.
6.) Tea with Buddha.

***

Abstractions

An abstraction is a concept that acts as a super-categorical noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category. (Clear?) An abstraction is a word like love, hate, joy, beauty, cunning, disgust. In this game we turn them into a kind of poetry or a piece of flash fiction.

The rules are simple and you can change the order around.
 1: Abstraction plus verb plus place
 2: Describe what the abstraction is wearing
 3: Summarize the action

Today's ABSTRACTION is:

Integrity walks gracefully through life completely nude.
She has nothing to hide.

***

The Question of the Month is hosted by Michael D'Agostino at A Life Examined .  The question this month is:

Which one social convention would you get rid of?

As Michael explains, "In other words, what’s one thing that society insists you do that you can’t stand? My first thought is that I hate being told to wear a suit to weddings or 21sts. Or that I have to stop and talk to every person I vaguely know when I pass them on the street."

I'm not perturbed by social conventions. I think of them as the oil that lubes the gears of society. Without them I think we'd be less civilized. I say "thank you" if a door is opened for me. I talk to people who recognize  me though I may not remember where they know me from. I kiss people on the cheek when in Puerto Rice because that's what they do. I shake hands or hug, here in the U. S. It's these little niceties that help to make living easier, particularly in this age when we seem to be so self-centered and preoccupied with our own likes/dislikes. It's no skin of my nose to be courteous. 

***

And, lastly, Happy Birthday to Eloise, who turned 60 on the 28th of this month.

Here is my beloved, well worn copy, which I got one Christmas when I was about eight. 

On the opening page, you can just see where my sister, Erva, put a line through Eloise's name and wrote in mine. 

She has her own suite of rooms at The Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Ooooooooooo, I absolutely LOVE Eloise.

***

Being Thankful

Now that we've had our first hard freeze, the trees are finally turning colors and shedding their leaves which means winter is on its way. Therefore, today I'm VERY thankful for central heat.
Although I do enjoy a nice fire, I lived for several years with a fireplace or wood stove as the only source of heat. Hauling logs, keeping the fire fed, dealing with ashes and burned fingers, may seem rather romantic, but give me central heat any day.

(Why to I relate so to this picture?)

What are you thankful for? Care to share an Impossible Thing or an Abstraction? What are your thoughts on the Question of the Month? Are you a fan of Eloise?

Alternatives, Abstractions, and Being Thankful

Alternatives is a recurring post in which I give synonyms for an over used word. Click on the tab above for a "complete" list of over used words.

Today's word is:

I can't say that active/actively is one of my over used words, but I can see how that wave is active... erasing the words over and over again.

Depending on how you use it, this list may come in handy for finding another way to say the same thing.

agile, agog, airy, alert, alive, angrily animate/animated/animatedly, assiduous/assiduously, astir, at work, awake

boisterous/boisterously, bouncing, bright, brisk/briskly, brutally, bubbly, buoyant, bustling, busy

cheerful, chipper, chirpy, chirrupy, committed, cruelly

dapper, dashing, devoted, diligent/diligently, dynamic/dynamically

eager/eagerly, earnestly, ebullient, effective/effectual, effervescent, efficacious, employable/employed, energetic/energetically, engaged, enterprising/enterprisingly, enthusiastic, exuberant

ferociously, fiercely, flourishing, flowing, forcibly, frantically, frisky, frolicsome, functional/functioning, furiously

gay, going,

hard-working, hasty, heavily, high-spirited, high-strung, hopping, humming

impelling, impish, in action, in force, in operation, in play, in process, indefatigably, industrious/industriously, intensely, involved

jaunty, jazzy

keen/keenly, kinetic

laborious/laboriously, like fury, live/lively/living

maddeningly/madly, meanly, mettlesome, mobile, movable/moving

nervous, nimble

occupied, on, open-eyed, operable/operating/operational/operative

painfully, peppy, performing, perky, pert, pixieish, pizzazzy, playful, powerfully, producing/productive, progressive, pushing

racy, rapid, relentlessly, restless, rigorously, roaring, rolling, roughly, rowdily, running, rustling

savagely, sedulous, seriously, serving, severely, sharply, shifting, simmering, skittish, snappy, spanking, sparkly/sparky, speeding/speedy, spiffy, spirited/spiritedly, sporty, sprightly, springingly, spry, steaming, stormily, strongly, swarming

thriving, tied-up, tireless/tirelessly, traveling, tumultuously, turbulently, turning

up, upbeat, uproariously, urgently, usable/useful

viable, viciously, vigorous/vigorously, vital, vivacious/vivaciously

walking, wide-awake, wildly, workable/working

yielding

zealous, zippy

Seeing as how both the GOING and MOBILE are in this list I just HAD to include this song. 

***

An abstraction is a concept that acts as a super-categorical noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category. (Clear?) An abstraction is a word like love, hate, joy, beauty, cunning, disgust. In this game we turn them into a kind of poetry or a piece of flash fiction.

The rules are simple. You can change them around.
 1: Abstraction plus verb plus place
 2: Describe what the abstraction is wearing
 3: Summarize the action

Today's ABSTRACTION is:

Loneliness, conceived in our brains,
hides behind the mask of longing
and refuses to show its true emptiness.

***

Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful for beaches. 

It's summer! Come join me for a seabath!

Caneel Bay, St. John

Hawksnest, St. John

 Big Maho, St. John

Reef Bay, St. John

And Trunk Bay, St. John, one of the ten most beautiful and most photographed beaches in the world.

It used to belong to my family, it's where I learned to swim. Now it belongs to everyone.

What are you thankful for? Care to try your hand at an Abstraction and leave it in the comments? Got a favorite alternative for active/actively? Is it even a word you over use?

Abstractions, The Monday Muse, A Win, and Being Thankful

Welcome to my Crazy Quilt.

An abstraction is a concept that acts as a super-categorical noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category. (Clear?) An abstraction is a word like love, hate, joy, beauty, cunning, disgust. In this game we turn them into a kind of poetry or a piece of flash fiction. They also make excellent writing prompts. Try it on, leave one in the comments.

The rules are simple. You can change them around.
 1: Abstraction + verb + place
 2: Describe what the abstraction is wearing
 3: Summarize the action

Today's ABSTRACTION is:

Delight, wearing tinkling tinsel, danced through the flower beds, and left laughter trailing in her wake.

I can see a fairy-like creature, pirouetting on flower petals, leaping from leaf to leaf. I see her inspecting for aphids and calling in the ladybug troops wherever needed. She carries with her a magic crystalline vial that holds within it all the scents of all the flowers in the garden where she lives.

See how the Abstraction turned into The Monday Muse?

This has the possibility of becoming a fairy tale, but something would have to go wrong. Perhaps Delight's vial loses its power, or the garden is threatened by a huge invasion of thrips that her labybug troops can't handle. Either way she has to find help. Which means she has to leave her garden for the first time in her very long life.

What will she find beyond the privet hedge and rose bushes? Who or what is she looking for? What adventures will she have? How will her experiences change her?

***

A Win!

From Natalie over at Literary Rambles I won Sarah McQuire's debut novel, Valiant.

Saville despises the velvets and silks that her father prizes more than he’s ever loved her. Yet when he’s struck ill she’ll do anything to survive–even dressing as a boy and begging a commission to sew for the king.

But piecing together a fine coat is far simpler than unknotting court gossip about an army of giants, led by a man who cannot be defeated, marching toward Reggen to seize the throne. Saville knows giants are just stories, and no man is immortal.

Then she meets them, two scouts as tall as trees. After she tricks them into leaving, tales of the daring tailor’s triumph quickly spin into impossible feats of giant-slaying. And stories won’t deter the Duke and his larger-than-life army.

Now only a tailor girl with courage and cunning can see beyond the tales to discover the truth and save the kingdom.

Valiant is a rich reimaging of "The Brave Little Tailor," artfully crafting a story of understanding, identity, and fighting to protect those you love most.

Natalie regularly gives away books by the authors she interviews. I hope you stop by and check out her informative blog.

***

Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful for clouds. My Sweetie and I call them decorations.

They give us something to hang our imagination on.

 They bring us rain.

They break up the vastness of a huge blue sky, perhaps helping to make us feel less small.

They make a fabulous canvass of which to paint a sunset.

Today I'm thankful for clouds. 

What are you thankful for? Has an Abstraction danced into your brain? Is your muse being prompted? Tell me all about!